Act Up! feat. Jonathan Roumie: "We Do Voices"

[Music] good day everyone welcome to the act up podcast uh and we've got a really cool guest on today a really good friend of mine jonathan roomie yeah it's funny because we might there might be a there might be a video version of this so you can see us kind of doing a little bit of a face like really good friend i don't know um that's pushing it it's a bit much kind of prism [Laughter] um but yeah it's really great to have you on man i've been wanting to chat to you a little bit and uh obviously as you know for those who are listening this is like a acting style podcast performance art that sort of thing um and it's it's i mean we we we work together on the chosen you play uh jesus which is it's nice and simple it's just just you don't have to like prelude it with the disciple or the baptist or anything like that it's just people people generally know who jesus is yes yes that's he's he's fairly well known in western culture fairly well known um so yeah it's a really it's really interesting because uh arguably that i mean that is it's got the most pressure on it uh with regards to a role playing on the chosen um and i wanted to kind of ask you a few questions about that but maybe maybe we leave that for us a quick second because you and i share a huge uh passion with voice over and that sort of thing so i don't know that might be something that people don't hear much of i'm not sure how much you do digress about your voice over stuff and how you started out with it but um i really want to chat to you about it because maybe i'll learn something because i really want to i've done voice over work very very in a limited capacity mostly my voices have been with a face so i've done sketch comedy and had to do impressions and stuff uh but yeah i want to know a little bit about perhaps the more the start of your career because i believe you did start in voice work right i did the first acting job i ever did professionally was voice over for mtv i uh i was being a mimic from the time i'm pretty young um i remember growing up um and i mean this is dating myself but i remember seeing president reagan on television and want and just doing impressions of him and and people be like wow that's actually that sounds pretty close you know as i mean in a kid voice obviously but still it was something that i've been that i've always um just had a knack for and just had an interest in and just kind of parroting people and and seeing how close that i could copy somebody's voice because i just thought i just found it fascinating and i i don't know how to if it has anything to do with you know the musician's ear or or what that's about are you a musician as well i'm not but it's it fascinates me that you say that because i could sketch really well as a kid and a lot of what and i i kind of my cooking skills are only if i see it i can do it and i've come to the conclusion i'm just a good mimic i can copy fairly well and i feel like i see someone's face and i become obsessed with their face as they talk and i'm like i can i know how you talk because i can see your mouth and how it's contorting that's interesting i you know because i used to draw as well and i was pretty good at it and i never i never connected the the the audio and the visual uh through the the lens of uh mimicry or or you know like uh just repeating or or being able to reproduce sound or visuals but in in terms of talent but i never thought of that like that but i wonder there must be some kind of connection um somewhere but uh yes so i i started uh in uh on for this show called uh celebrity death match already running and uh we had that in australia i can't believe that was you because you you can you tell us some of the voices that you would have done on that yeah well i did i did like 25 different voices over the course of three seasons of that show and i did uh so i did george w a couple of times i did um the first i think the first uh character i ever did on that was tony danza from who's the boss and uh uh yeah and and i forget who he was even fighting but it was a lot of like my impression was like hey angela get the goal will you you're something like that you know along those lines oh it's trying to remember what it was you know yeah yeah and just throwing out names and they're like yeah it's good enough you know so um so i got to i got to sort of cut my teeth on that show uh as a performer and then just kind of honing my my mimicry skills and uh and then that led to other stuff like wanting to do voice over and cartoons which i i it was years before i booked any other animated work um but then by doing commercials i did voiceovers for commercials um i started doing video games in the early 2000s and that that became something i that i ended up doing a fairly decent amount of work for and uh and now you know now and this year actually i i just started um hitting a bit of a stride in the animation world again so i i did a feature that's coming out this fall uh for stephen colbert's company and you know all political satire stuff um you know again doing doing impressions of politicians and uh and then i did uh i i started work on two different animated series for netflix so we'll see we'll see where they go um yeah and just you know doing various accents and dialects and and um all sorts of characters so it's just been to me it's it's like finally getting to to realize a childhood dream of working in in animation and stuff so but in between i've developed this this on-camera career which i never actually wanted i mean i never wanted to be on camera i just always thought like if anything oyster was going to be my gig and then it just ballooned well let's talk about that that connection between something like voice work compared to acting i do want it this this is probably now in the middle because you said you started with voice work and then there was camera workout in in between that something that i found especially being an impression impressionist voice over person or at least mimic like yourself um is i found myself in my early i didn't have early jobs i just had early auditions or early acting school things and one thing i found myself doing and being i would find comfort in doing characters and so then especially in australia really boring over here you know crappy soap operas and whatnot uh they would just be like we just want to hear about we just want to hear george's voice and i'm like can i do an american accent at least and like no we just want australian and i struggled with that i'm wondering if because where i now where i found my stride being an impressionist is creating a character and then using the character that's been created to then fully immerse myself in the role i wanted to ask you about that that that jump between impersonating someone and then doing i guess a real person on television did you use any of your skills as a voice artist does character creation come from there because you can mimic people is it harder to create a new character because there's nobody to mimic you know i i kind of i think about this i'm reminded of this sketch from saturday night live that the late phil hartman did um and it was about a guy who didn't know what his real voice was because he did so many different characters he would and then he would just basically it was like the best of phil hartman in like one sketch i can't remember the name sketch but it was he was just switching and switching and switching and there might have even been song in it and i i can't remember i i want to say that like in the end he finally you could hear who he was like he had a couple of lines as himself but i i don't even remember the sketch that well but um at times i i can understand i i'm trying to i've tried to um really reflect on what that is the psychology behind what that is uh and what what it's about to go into preferring to kind of escape from your own sound or your own and it probably stems from some kind of for me uh from some kind of insecurity with myself and just never having um had this this sense of confidence growing up as a kid um you know i got i got picked on a bit as a kid and bullied and and um not as bad as other people but i was just kind of quiet and shy and small and and then eventually i filled in and uh um and then just found my voice at you know through and then after college really um it was after college that i started working as an actor and i think that working in the in the film industry helped bring me out of my shell and so um but i still had these skills so now with i think a little bit of confidence you know which is something you really need when you're working as an actor um to be able to take the skills that you kind of could develop in in your bedroom or your closet just you know doing these voices and creating these little scenes you know by yourself um i i think definitely when there's i mean there's i played a couple of characters where you know that are historical um before i played jesus i played john wilkes booth again another character who you i don't know what he sounded like but we have pictures of him at least so there was you know that to kind of go off of and i think whether it's like finding a look you know working from the outside in um finding a piece of clothing finding a voice finding you know even like a a prop coin or something you put in your pocket that kind of connects you to the material to the character some things are going to be stronger than others in bringing out that character and really you know grounding you in who that person is and it's just a matter of trying to find what that sometimes it's not even it's not even a tangible thing you know sometimes it just could be it could be um you know if you're doing effective memory or or some kind of uh sense memory exercise where you're recreating sensorially the the the the um the circumstances of being in a certain place at a certain time in your life that that or some kind of this recreating some kind of nostalgia that evokes an emotional reaction that is fitting for whatever the scene is and and that becomes the starting point sometimes it's you know there's even other kinds of approaches that i like like uh something called externals or like where you're working for uh could be animals you could be working for uh uh you know like a lunchbox that's sitting there and all of a sudden now trying to you know inhabit and take on the um characteristics of what it is to be up you know a a hollow piece of of aluminum you know that's that's kind of square and what does that feel like and you you you know there's there's the wonderful thing about what the work that we do is that there's a million ways to get to the same result you know to the desired result which is you know emotional and organic truth um within the context of a scene and uh so i i think voices definitely helps me help me in some areas and then in other areas uh you know it's it becomes kind of like uh part of the costume you know yeah like with with the jesus accent to me that rooted me in the culture because it comes from my family and uh and the time it doesn't specifically make me think of jesus you know what i mean like that hearing that accent it's just part of the the the accoutrement of the props or the the you know it's part of the costume for me the vocal costume if you will um there's other things that for me will will connect me more to the to his character in other ways that that are not quite tangible well i want to come back to jesus um in a second because you said something really interesting about you know the creation of john wilkes booth um with the idea of uh maybe is it a coin or something and i do want a probe to see if there is anything like that for jesus but i'll put a pin in that because you did mention something about embodying a lunchbox and that is does that does that come from any kind of training or is that any time of any type of research that you've had or is that just learnt on the job through theater i mean do you do you have background in theater by the way we've talked about it i i have yeah i've done some theater not not a whole lot of theater i'm not super well read in place because i you know i i train later in life as an actor and when i went to train it was with very specific purpose and and an idea about what i did and didn't want to do and and i was working in the film industry so i didn't have the time or the the luxury you know to be able to just stop working for two years to go to a conservatory it just wasn't something i could do at that point in my life um because i went to film school and then now i was working in the film industry so i went and studied craft and all that stuff like working for like an inanimate object which is what that the lunch box would fall under um yes absolutely there's i think there's a few different um uh styles of uh training that that uh delve into that um i studied with uh i studied the eric moore system um under his new york protege uh anthony vincent bova who's a brilliant coach in new york city and uh and then with eric himself who uh funny enough i literally ran into him a few blocks from where i live he was having coffee the guy is about 90 years old and he's still doing virtual classes like five and six hour classes oh wow cool yeah yeah i'll run into it yeah when i move back when you when you come back here yeah i mean he's uh i mean and he's still writing books i mean the guy the guy is a legend and i spent a week um doing like an immersive class with him um just as i started training in new york i came out to california for two or three weeks and i spent like five days in this like week-long immersive um sort of a acting camp if you will like 15 hours a day you know just training and it it kind of it for it um it sort of thrust me like three grades ahead of where i was you know in the class when i started and it really uh completely changed how i worked because i i mean i didn't have a system and i was just starting to learn this system and then hearing it from the guy that developed the system who studied with lee strasberg who studied with a bunch of method teachers who taught jack nicholson for a time you know and a bunch of other famous actors and and uh um you know it to me it was just uh it was extraordinary and i i came away with with so much because it was really about getting to you know the level of truth i mean but at the end of the day you know even eric will tell you if it works use it any good teacher with assault will one that will never say well this is the only way to do it and if you're doing something else then you're not acting that's that's you know that's a fakery or you know that's and that that person is just pretty much a snob about their their technique but if whatever it is if it works you use it so within working for inanimate objects it's part of a system called externals where you're you're not coming at a role from an emotional kind of um uh place within yourself you're looking to to get to find that place you're not starting with like a memory or something like that or starting with with something that's going to make you um you know if the scene is you're depressed in the scene and now you're working for uh when i say working for something that means you're you're trying to put yourself in in a place where you can feel the feelings that the character feels in that scene let's say it's the guy it's depressed now i'm working to be well what what in my life if i'm using you know if i'm doing the method uh what in my life makes me feel what has happened in my life that i can recall that allows me to feel um a state of depression that is similar to what this character is going through that is also still you know safe to me for me psychologically um so it's not that it's like what what might evoke that by not focusing on like the exact you know emotional memory but what will maybe stimulate that through some other means like if i don't want to touch um my own personal life and my own personal history i don't have to i can go with externals and be like you know what this guy he's uh let's say he's not depressed he's like he's he's tough but he's he's hollow and he's you know he's [ __ ] you know he's shallow and like what what might i want to work for that uh uh would would give me that sensation so if i find a lunch box he's kind of thin but he's metal and it's kind of boxy and i just start trying to take on the features of what that is and then how might that just change my voice you know like if i was a just a lunch box or something just standing there you know just very uh really not paying attention to just i'm not there's nothing there's nothing inside i'm just maybe i'm looking past you as you're talking to me i'm not quite listening and all of a sudden these these these qualities start to come out that i don't know where they came from it just came from like trying to embody the sensation that this looking at this thing gives me it could be a rock it could be a paper clip you know it could be a piece of glass it could be anything so it's very similar english that sounds really similar to like character creation at the groundlings where you kind of you build a character from actually you build them from your you build it from a point of view and from you could build it from a face you could actually get the point of view from a person's face or you could get the face from a point of view if you were if you were snobby you'd be like ew and like people can't see this if you're not watching the video but hopefully this is out on video but if you're like ill all of a sudden you're you know your your your lips are pursed and your nose is up you're like uh and then this is the person like i and then they speak quick they kind of speak and if i do want to deepen i could speak quick like this and then all of a sudden i'm this guy like what are you doing like and all of a sudden like he's now got new york accent for some reason i don't know you can you can kind of you can move in and out with all those um i love that i love that application of technique i wanted to ask you firstly in the timeline of let's just say now is you and then you've got celebrity death match what isn't the timeline you'd have to say years but like in the middle when did you do that that training with eric roughly middle 25 a few years ago third of the way in a third oh cool and then you start getting some like on-screen work now do you start using a lot of the stuff you learned from eric then and do you still apply it now do you find oh yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean i i i do the work whenever i can like i couldn't wait to get the opportunities to do the work when i was studying but they were they were fewer and further between um obviously but i was taking other classes at the time like these um these master on camera classes um with a famous uh acting coach named bob krakauer in new york city and um and so i remember going into his class after i got back from l.a and he's like he used to call me johnny he's like johnny what'd you do what happened i'm like i just studied with eric morris and he was like whatever you did it's working so i'm like great you know and i i you know i i feel like i just felt felt like i had a map now you know whereas before i was just trying to go on instinct instinct and and there were limitations and i was afraid to to to try other kinds of characters and there were certain characters i would i would i'd be like there's no way i could do that and then studying with eric and having a craft they're like yeah i could do that if i needed to and this is how i would do it and and so it just just freed me up and gave me a sense that i could you know do anything as an actor when you when you have the skills um you know necessary then you become fearless and and a lot of people especially when they're starting out i don't know if you've ma have you encountered this like where people feel that you know that their that their natural talent will just be will suffice for a career and it's like well you might get a few jobs but i mean you can't sustain that as a career because if you're going to be doing all these different roles like how do you how do you have consistency how do you show up you know for you know a 30-day shoot if you've shown up every day and if you're doing 10 takes how do you make sure you can keep it going for 10 takes because if you're just like i'm just gonna wing it i i don't see how that's sustainable unless you're just a genius yeah it's kind of like doing like weights at the gym i always love equating acting to the gym because people think that it's not a muscle that can't be worked and you need to get abs for it i guess it's like if you go into the gym and you and you bench i don't know what pounds are tequilas i would say you bench 100 kilos let's just say maybe 150 pounds or something 120 pounds you do it and you do it once and you're like yeah that was really but if you were to do that over and over again with that crap technique you'd probably get an injury and so you need to go no no start lower you need to have the proper technique and then you can do it sustainably because like you're saying i was the same i felt the raw talent could have been there um but i was erratic you know and there were little things like the emotional connection was there for me but i had especially i i did some classes at nida which is the national institute of dramatic art here in australia it's in sydney that's where like russell crowe went and then hugo weaving i think cate blanchett goes there as well um awesome so i i didn't actually study there i just did the paid classes like that you you kind of like the free one not free ones but yeah didn't take much to get into those classes but they would just tell me little things like your face is moving too much and those are like yeah you you need to find a way to and you need those you need those you know especially when you're working on film television oh yeah you need to be emotionally available but at the same time keep your face really still i was just watching tom cruise in magnolia my goodness he's just his face is dead still and there's so much coming through i think it's a great performance and he does that really well and i'm just wondering he was so young when he started out i'm like where has he learned this and that it could just be the thing is there are people like you said it is the raw talent we'll get you through but that's one in a hundred one in a million one in a thousand i don't know what it is buy and like if it doesn't work pretty high yeah yeah if it doesn't work yeah you need you need that you need the schooling i mean you even i mean look you even take for for actors of my generation and probably yours as well like when you go back to to where screen acting changed with like you know uh marlon brando and and um uh and the guys of that era uh they studied they studied with stella adler and they studied with with lee strasberg and all of them studied you know deniro and pachino they studied everybody trained they trained because you know that's what you do it's like for some reason the arts are are a discipline where people feel like they don't need training like in any other job like you wouldn't get work if you didn't know what you were doing if you weren't hired if you weren't trained do you know what i mean so you can have a talent for the skill but you know if you're in situations where you know let's say you're working with somebody on in a scene or whether it's a play and they're they're not giving i mean the idea of technique i feel like it's it's in for the for the for the moments when you know you're on stage or you're in a scene with a person and the chemistry is not perfect the entire time and you're looking for something from that other actor to stimulate you for this next moment and you don't get it and then it's like ah they're not giving me what i need and i what what do i do then what do i do then well then i've got a technique to fall back on and you know resuscitate whatever's you know collapsed in the scene and i'm not limited to to whatever potential limitations or blocks let's say my scene partner is having if that happens um luckily that hasn't i mean that's rarely happened there's been one or two times in my career where i can remember thinking like i it was i i just didn't know what to do you know like and i and i just had to resort to just do you know relegated myself to having to go into one of my tools to just create a scene or create an emotional um exchange that wouldn't have happened otherwise if i had just relied on the the interpersonal you know dialogue between myself yeah and the other actor can i ask you because it was a really interesting um example you gave there uh and it's kind of you know it was scratching the surface of of what you're doing on the chosen with you know your work as jesus but if you're in a scene whether it's on the chosen or not and this it doesn't mean that the other actor is annoying you or anything like that but if you are not getting something or if it's not even to do with the other actor it's something on set would you ever go into the moment of frustration and use it for the character oh absolutely i mean yeah i think that's so jonathan feels something there for we're gonna see jesus feeling it you have to you have to honor truth in the a moment-to-moment basis because that's what that's what makes moments on film stand out or moments in theater it's like the things where you don't expect and you're like whoa this that was real and and that was it might have been caused by something like some kind of frustration yeah i mean you know if it goes completely uh against the you know what's in the script for as far as the emotional um order is concerned uh or you know what what you're meant to be doing um you know if let's say you're frustrated and you're playing a scene where you're in love with somebody you're like okay uh how do i work this in and maybe sometimes it's it is an explosion and then you're like okay i tried to work it in it didn't work and then at least you got it out of your system and then now you can maybe find other ways but even just that honoring that that moment and expressing that well now the other actor is now all of a sudden like oh you know they're they're sh they [ __ ] they have to shift on that they have to respond to that as well and so something else really interesting might come out of that but at the very least you're you're being truthful in the moment and you're not you know just giving some regurgitated idea of what the emotion is called for in the scene or what the performance you're not just staging this you know this this shoddy recreation of of an emotional life you know it's actually a it's actually moving it's alive and it's it's you know energizing like one of my favorite actors because had this quality in almost everything he did in the very early part of his career like was al pacino so if you watch early al pacino like dog day afternoon um panic and needle park um like there was this element of danger you know um uh serpico like you you watched the guy and you just felt like i didn't know what he was going to do you know because he was just he just was moment to moment and you could just see this guy was just living on film and the fact that it's a film and they're doing several takes and they're doing reverses and they're doing you know coverage you know um you you just wonder how somebody could be that raw and instinctive and and like especially at that time and he was just i mean he's he's one of my favorites of all time can i ask you what do you reckon because you said the early part of his career and the funny thing is is that i had a i actually this is um kevin jackson now he used to be the head of nida he taught kate blanchett he's like the the person that all these nida graduates thank all these like esteemed australian actors that you see and he really doesn't like our pacino but he says it from the perspective of i don't like what he became because his his big thing is about honoring the script and he felt like maybe as pacino got older and more you know status on the set he started going no i know what's better on the script i know better than the writer and then what ends up happening is every role now becomes because you're the one writing the lines we now not expect what we're going to hear from the actor because the actor's writing their own lines as opposed to hearing a different writer's voice do you think there was a shift uh in pacino's career because you did specify early pacino do you think it changed at all you know i i i specify the early part of his career because for me that was the most exciting and diverse range of roles that he did and and just the work was just for me just consistently you know engaged and then i mean he had you know um you know even in the late 80 or 92 cent of a woman you know there was there was this kind of throwback to that kind of danger you know um so you're just still the same actor you would say he didn't lose anything no no i don't think so i mean i i you know i think it's it's harder when you get older because it's you know you're he's he's not able to move obviously like he could move and because he was just very like you know at times he felt frantic and frenetic and and physically energized so you could see that and then as as you know people as humans slow down and and get older it's like they're they can't do that anymore you know it was uh but but i mean i think the the energy is still in there it just doesn't come out the same way you know what i mean well yeah well i want to i want to finish up on this idea of you know using all this experience that you did have because you you land the role of jesus quite uh i mean you before the chosen you get to do it for dallas don't you in a short film and you you kind of have to create the character then there's a few things that you mentioned here in terms of not only your training but little ideas that maybe you've picked up or maybe you have got it from your training uh the one that i i kept a nerd off here was you had a coin for for john booth uh and then you've also mentioned your training with eric i want to go back to that moment where you you first played jesus what's what's the process from jonathan to create this character do you have something physical that you kind of keep on you um you know do you use some of your technique from eric or i mean do you feel something because obviously you know from your faith you would be connected to this person um you know so i mean what's the process like when you're creating a character so iconic essentially from scratch yeah um it's a tough one with with jesus because you know obviously he's a historical character but we don't there's no footage we don't know what he sounds like so i'm i'm left to kind of just make these choices which i started the process with dallas but then even looking at the older work with dallas you know i think i started i settled in with the character after a few iterations i think it was until you know probably until the chosen where i really kind of started to settle in i feel with what jesus you know how he should be as a character on screen and i i mean i think to an extent i'm still finding stuff you know i think i'm still finding him you know uh because it's a you know i don't know when you get new scripts you have a new season for a show it's it's an it's a newly living breathing thing right and so the the the the order for the day for for that season might be a different side of him that we haven't seen yet you know or a different uh angle on or perspective of his life that is exposed that you know might be something that i'd never even considered you know before um i i don't have a specific little you know uh i i i dare use the word talisman um not in any uh you know uh um a biblical or unbiblical sense but just like some kind of thing that connects me to the character um you know i think i think part of the costume sort of starts to create you know the character for me and and uh um [Music] but i think for him it's mostly about my my spiritual prep and that that to me is my road into the characters how much prep i do spiritually how um where i'm at you know like as as a catholic i would be going to mass i would be going to confession just trying to clean out all the spiritual baggage to make sure that when i set foot on when i step foot on set that i'm i'm open to to trying to be a a channel for for that spiritual energy and um you know uh yeah i mean that's that's kind of what where he comes from for for for me you know um i'm i'm starting work on a project now that uh is also a historical character and it's more of a modern character and so i can watch footage of them and so i immediately find myself gravitating now towards the more traditional uh modalities of training that i that i've took on and i'm you know working with voice and and trying finding his voice and you know finding the placement of this guy's voice and for a new character right this is for a new character yeah um and so uh i'm i mean really excited about this process because i haven't quite got to do this kind of work in in a while um because it just didn't work for for the jesus character you know so um so so this i mean this is to me it's it's a it's kind of like being back in school again and i'm going through my old books and and notes and and things like that and and uh yeah i'm um i'm excited to try some new things and maybe try you know even try out some of the externals to see if that works for this guy you know so it's very much the the exploration phase of the work for me right now so yeah um yeah well so is it so your your interpretation of jesus would have changed massively from short film to season one i'm actually going to kind of ask this in two parts because it's short filmed to season one and then season one to season two but i'm gonna focus on that first segment very quickly and you know it so something changed in between those two for your interpretation of the character yeah i guess you've got a lot more to work with yeah i wouldn't say i wouldn't say massively it was the but it was well from the first short film i had played jesus once before in um a theatrical multimedia project um about the a nun uh who became a saint saint faustina and between that and then dallas short film it felt like there was a there was a shift i think i was finding the accent morris you know i was trying to hone in on what he sounded like and then with the first short film for dallas uh it i mean it's so few lines so i you know i didn't there wasn't much character to kind of show and it's he's on a cross he's on the cross already um if i had to go back and do that again i and when eventually when hopefully we get to season six or seven when i get to do that uh i think it'll be different i think i i i i felt like i didn't quite i didn't quite have all of the facets of jesus figured out and i didn't i hadn't lived so to speak through the history that we're creating now well maybe no one has get to that point well no i don't think anybody had well nobody has actually i mean we've we've never this has never been done before so so i think that's why when when we get to the crucifixion uh in the series uh it's going to be unlike anything in any other emotional experience that myself as an actor will will probably uh have ever had and then as an audience member um it's just going to be i think excruciating oh yeah brutal absolutely and then is there anything in season two where you explored something else in jesus's character that maybe you didn't you you weren't able to explore in season one i can already guess maybe there's a little bit of a light-heartedness or something that perhaps uh in the dialogue or whatnot was there anything else yeah i think more of his you know we got to see a little more humor we get we got to see a little more uh frustration you know the sons of thunder i love the losers i love that day so much by the way because it was really really fun it was weird because i was get i was kind of um i wanted and they ended up using it because dallas just wanted options i remember him because i was petulant i didn't want to look at you because you're you're kind of you're the teacher and you've just you know you've gone you've kind of given me a bit of detention and no way but i i'm i'm obsessed with you and i love you and everything but i just wanted to stare at the floor and then dallas went let's try one where you're actually looking at him but if you look at the footage they've chosen i am just like sheepish and i love that i loved it because yeah we don't see that side of jesus too much in the series and then that's the first time we see it when it's you know arguably the beloved disciple who's there instigating things i i felt that it felt great by the way you live for those moments as an actor oh yeah what what did you think when they took out the this pillow scream the the the or the blanket screaming i completely forgot about that yeah i don't know yeah it kind of it didn't yeah i actually forgot did not even notice that was it until now yeah just now you're just yeah seeing the the cogs turn in my head as i go oh that's gone um yeah yeah no it kind of felt i think it worked though because i think seeing it now it's just like oh because then it would have stopped the flow of like you know you ramp up and then we're coming down and then there's this interlude and i i didn't i didn't think when i when i saw it was there like where'd it go and then i'm like actually when i watched again i'm like oh it's actually it flows really nice and uh you come out of that you know moment of anger like you you still it's like you took you you took the moment anyway like the moments there yeah we just didn't see it in the way that we originally shot it was i don't know i've seen it on some bts stuff out there but i don't know if people know what the what the original scene was they may be like what are you guys talking about yeah yeah well originally yes so jesus hands john like a hanky to go go and like and you know what actually we were discussing that as well like i think you were going so what am i handing this to him was that was that the conversations we were having it's like i'm handing this to him so that he can scream and like get it off his chest like even then it was a little bit like oh a little bit up in the air and we could always remove it um but like you said it's kind of like a prop to do the job of the actors whereas if the actors are able to do it then you kind of don't need the prop you know so yeah so long story short we're supposed to use a hanky for john to scream into but now he kind of was like it was like a blanket it was like a it was a radical cloth or rag or something like yeah yeah um and then i think the only other difference other than those kind of you know facets of his personality that that we didn't really get to see uh as much in season one for me it's like just trying to find stillness and i think that's just stillness as an actor you know and really trying to just ground ground myself at all times you know what techniques do you use for stillness and groundness on set i think i just i do some just some deep breathing or i i really just try to focus on the other actor i try to focus on if it's you i just really try to consider you in front of me and and what i know about you and and what i know about the history of the our characters on screen and and just try to be as still as possible you know because this is a visual medium and like when your your face is up there if you're doing all this sort of stuff it just becomes so distracting i've and i've learned by watching myself which is as an actor just the the value of like on camera audition classes is is priceless because you you watch yourself hopefully if it's a good class you're watching yourself and somebody's like yeah you see that that head moving it's like you got parkinson's well don't do that because that you'll never in fact i heard um george clooney telling this story i think it was to howard stern that when he was on er i think steven spielberg was producing i think some of the early seasons or might have been a producer in the entire series of er and like early on he came over and or he was or was he a producer would do would he just stop by or i can't i can't remember um but he he came over he was producing and he came over to to george because he had seen like he he like moved around a lot and he was using his hands a lot and everything i tend to use my hands a lot as well so i've had to kind of really like get a hold on that and um he said you know if you moved your head less you you'd be a movie star oh wow yeah and he took that note and shortly thereafter became a movie star so as he took the advice but everybody needs the advice at times you know you have to you got to relinquish your ego and know when when you know you you you don't know everything and and happily take you know positive criticism and and just you know be better make yourself better i mean that's i'm always just trying to be better at at this role and and whatever it is and just a better actor because i i just love the work i mean you're the same way you just you just love the work so much you just want it to be as good as it possibly can you know yeah no thanks man and you know what like it's it shows on screen like it's it's i mean it's safe to say me personally i think this is the best the best version of jesus we would have ever seen on on television is coming from you man and um you know i i'm i'm sure you hear that a lot but it's it's absolutely true and by the way i did search just then just to to cut that that dramatic uh moment between us he was a producer for the first season uh on on er he's the first season first season then he left yeah so he was probably a straight he just got on just to make george clooney a movie star and then bug it off and did a whole bunch of awesome stuff um yeah dude there's so much more i'm sure we could chat about not to mention because we talk about it so much your stuff off um camera you know all of your experiences i mean you worked on ballers i know and i would love to pick your brain about how that sort of stuff does help an actor because me and me and austin talked about that just from the perspective of being an extra but for other actors being on sets near sets is absolutely priceless but we'll get into that next time man because uh yeah yeah we we we try and make these as succinct as possible and i always say and every every actor that comes on like i could chat for two hours but you know we'll we'll just make it another episode well we can chat a few more minutes if you want well i want to ask you then okay as the last thing because you did mention film school when you say film school do you mean studying to make films or going as an actor okay no i i studied filmmaking i was a film major in college right in new york city um at a place called the school of visual arts was a private art school and they had very specific um programs that were uh taught by working professionals working um you know crafts people editors filmmakers you know uh designers it started as a school for cartooning and i think 1947 and then in the 60s and 70s started to develop their film program and and um you know from day one we basically got to use film cameras and you know now nobody shoots film anymore but um we were shooting film and making movies and learning how to edit and and as a prerequisite we we had to study uh acting you know uh with a teacher one class each semester and i think my first my first semester acting teacher was susan batson who became nicole kidman's coach and she has her own school and she was she was fantastic um and uh and i remember being like the the most terrified of in any class it was working in her class because it meant i had to get up and just you know make an idiot of myself for for 20 minutes or 30 minutes at a time and and uh and it was then that i decided i would never be an on-camera actor that i would if anything i would probably do voice-over yeah and uh and here i am today so that didn't work out exactly as i planned something in a good way fortunately yeah right yeah fortunately well i mean i got over myself and and took a shot yeah so you study at film school then but you end up doing so many other jobs we've talked about it so much and i want to you know you've talked about it as well on your instagram so i can say but you were you were russell brand stand in for example but you're doing all sorts of stuff like you know helping with travel and rigging and you know all sorts on set i mean i need to work man i was i mean i needed money you know i was i was broke and and when i left new york i no longer had the stability of a film position you know i was on cruise as a as a location scout or a location manager it was my jobs when i left was that i had worked 10 years and built the career as a location manager a scout mostly and then a manager towards the end and um and uh and then i realized i was i was just becoming too um logistic logistic uh oriented for for me as a position and i needed to be do something creative and so when i left to pursue acting full time um all i had was my savings and i had these skills but you know those skills are a prerequisite to having a community that will employ you because you have those skills and coming to la i didn't know anybody there were different union rules it was a it was a unionized position here what i was doing in new york um and i just i didn't know anybody and so i just had to like figure out other things and years after i got here i was like well you know what if i'm gonna make any kind of money i might as well try to make money and accrue pension credits and try to qualify for health insurance so i started doing background work i had done that for a split second when i when i was acting in new york for a little bit but not very much because having worked on crew you had a very different opinion about you know background actors because you now had to in my department i had to clean up after them so and they weren't very polite at times most of the time so i just had this very strong idea about like man i don't want to do background work you don't want to be an extra you know because it seems like oh cool you're on a set and then like the reality is like crew don't treat you great you know and it's like this weird cycle because you know there are one or two i mean it's always like one or two spoiled the batch right so you get one or two extras that will like steal a bunch of bananas on the way home and then people like what is this guy doing you know and then that just sets off this this dynamic that is just awful for the next like 30 days on the shoot you know and um and gets it gets very contentious at times and other times it's great but there's still the general um having done this i can i have no problems talking about this there is the general dynamic between crew and background is is is is not exactly sympatico so um when it when i got to the point where i just needed money and i wanted to make sure that i tried to qualify for health insurance because i didn't have health insurance for like 10 years i thought well screw it i'm just gonna i'm just gonna go and do this and do my thing and at least i know what i need to do and um we'll see what happens and so i i went and i signed up at the agency here um where actors sign up and back for background work and i didn't get anything i couldn't even like i and then all of a sudden i got one call to be to to show up as like this afghan villager in a clint eastwood movie and i thought well i'm definitely doing that because i don't know if i'll ever get a chance to work with clint eastwood so i'm just going to do this and it was amazing it was i just learned so much about like how clint eastwood works because you see you see what happens and it was awesome and the whole thing was like six or seven hours and it was done i mean he shoots a quick day like he's you you you got there like eight you were getting dressed and dusted and dirted up and then like at two o'clock he comes in he sets up the shot like a bunch of tanks and humvees this was for 310 to paris and then uh he does the shot a couple times couple different angles and he's like okay let's go and then the day's over by like four and you're like oh cool and uh and then after that i think i think i did one other day and i'm like what's i can't even get background days like i couldn't even get background work i just was like like really god and then and then i got a call for no and i hadn't done anything on record as a stand-in before i'd been a stand-in years before but that wasn't on my resume uh and then they just said it i because i was uh six feet tall and i had they didn't even know like my pictures were without a beard i think and they're like do you have a beard and i said i do have a beard they're like do you still have long hair i said yeah like you want to be a stand-in for russell brand and i said sure and then i ended up working for two seasons on the show and i made health insurance and i got to know russell and and we became friends and do you learn anything from that as as well like being i mean obviously you've given us an example of learning something off a clint eastwood set or just knowing how he works but i mean doing that two years being a stand-in and just being around is this stuff that you pick up at all that you take with you it was great because i got to see how like somebody in his in russell's position like what how you know what his responsibilities are so i'm like just taking notes this is like this is before the chosen and uh i'm i'm i'm for the first season it turned out that that dp that was on the show uh he preferred that the stand-ins are off book i'm like wow off book you're like yeah so you come to set you get the the sides for the day and sometimes there's monologues and you're like i'm just trying to you know trying to learn a monologue as best as you can um and then if you you know if you need to pull it you have it but they they encourage you to be as off book as possible so i thought what a great exercise so it was like a like a memory building exercise did you do an impression of her by the way and then for kicks i decided to do an impression of it and and uh apparently it left it left an impression uh me doing the impression um more on the producers and uh at the end of the second season they uh the creator of the show um steven levenson he went to bat for me to put me in the the the final episode of of the series when they hadn't cast this one character and um so it was me in the scene it would have been russell brand it would have been this other uh video game team owner guy for like this like this uh you know when they do the uh what do they call them with the uh exhibitions or when you have the yeah like i don't know the name of them but like when like competitive gaming right so there are these teammates and they have esports esports yeah so so there was like the esports team owner there was uh his partner that hadn't been cast and there was russell so russell had long hair and a beard the esports owner guy had long hair and a beard and then stephen called me over he's like jonathan i want you to read this and and uh like sure uh and he said he says to me i think i had just this is for the second season i just finished the first half of season one of the chosen i think and he's like so i heard you're playing jesus i'm like yeah he's like you want to read something for me i said sure level whatever you want and uh so he's like hey take this go work on it for a couple of minutes come back and we'll work out the scene um it's left from new york so from long island actually which is where i grew up so it was a very comforting accent because i you know i grew up hearing hearing that accident so uh it was like we were neighbors and uh and so i come back and i just started reading the the the the scene with with his assistant and he's directing he's like faster all right all right there you go more confidence more just like talking me through it and he's like that's it that's like i can work with this well and and then the casting director is just standing off camera she's like love he's got a beard there's three guys with beards and hats you can't put three like in a visually like you just he's like listen this is what we're gonna do and that's we take care of our own and that's what we're gonna do he's this is our guy okay i'm like oh okay all right she's like fine and so uh what they did actually i didn't have a hat and so to make me different from the other guys they gave me a hat and then they i think then they took russell out of the scene and he they they didn't it was just me and this other kid and then and then uh and then they made us brothers or something so they're like well let's do we'll just make them brothers so like all right well now now we're brothers so yeah yeah it was uh so it ended up the whole thing ended up in just slowly building this relationship that i didn't even know that i had but apparently you just you don't know who's watching you you know you don't know if if you're being observed so you just you use it as an opportunity to to be on your game and um and if it works out and people respect you and they respect your skills and your work ethic it ends up i mean i ended up getting a part on on the um on the show so that wasn't something that i ever expected you know yeah it worked out nicely it's all about those reps it's as if you were doing training you didn't even know it and then all of a sudden yeah you're you're primed and ready because you've been doing these lines this whole time i have to watch that by the way because i've watched uh ball it's ballers isn't it all the way all the way to the end and i haven't seen the last season so no wonder i didn't recognize you being on it because it took him a while to do it because the rock's doing about 600 projects at once so i'll have to check it out well dude thank you thank you so much for joining me here today thanks for as i always say thanks for acting up with me here i'm gonna have to have you back on the show and i'm gonna bring all my stuff with me when we film the chosen so maybe uh you know sweet on on one of these like low weekends if you ever get a a a a restful weekend whilst we're filming season three uh you know i'll set up the cameras and we'll sit back and we'll we'll enjoy a nice drink and uh you know swirl around maybe an apple juice or perhaps something ice cubes ask ice cubes some salsa perhaps yes yes salsa and ice cubes in a sprig of lime and and we'll watch the office and we'll we'll do all sorts we'll do all sorts that's right dude it's been an absolute pleasure thanks for coming on and uh yeah i'll chat to you soon mate awesome man talk to you later [Music] you

Channel: George H Xanthis

Views: 20,264

Keywords: TheChosen, JonathanRoumie, ActUpPodcast, ActUp, TV, GeorgeXanthis

Id: _MSBh5K21x4

Length: 58min 4sec (3484 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 05 2021